When is Outgroup Inclusion a Deviant Act: The Role of Agent and Participant Group Status, 2022-2023

We examine the conditions in which children aged 4-11 judge an objectively positive act – inclusion - relatively negatively (i.e., when violating group norms, and when performed by individuals of differing group status).

Because asking children to make prosocial choices under conditions of perceived social risk is an ethical challenge, we instead asked children to evaluate the prosocial choices of third parties. We also focused on risk arising from intergroup relations.

Participants heard a vignette about two fictional groups of children (minimal categories: children from the purple school, children from the yellow school), which were presented alongside a storyboard. Participants were assigned to one of two conditions: normative inclusion (low risk) or normative exclusion (high risk). In each condition, children learned about a story character who behaves prosocially towards an outgroup member. In the high risk condition, children will be informed there is a pervasive norm of division between the fictional groups. In this context, behaving prosocially towards an outgroup member may be viewed as violating an ingroup norm, which could risk reprisal from the ingroup. Conversely, in the low risk condition, no norm of division (and by extension, no salient risk) is present.

Of interest, first, is if children evaluate third party prosocial behavior more negatively when it violates an ingroup norm; qualitative justifications will be obtained to shed light on the reasoning underpinning evaluations. Though existing studies demonstrate that children negatively evaluate ‘deviant’ group members - those who break ingroup norms - those studies have typically examined amoral behaviors (e.g., lying/stealing/cheating). By negatively evaluating and potentially punishing amoral, deviant group members, the group stands to protect its reputation. Yet, the novel aspect of this study would be demonstrating that children also evaluate prosocial behaviors negatively, when they conflict with an ingroup norm.

A second, complementary, set of questions will assess the extent to which children expect ingroup reprisal (and the types which they might expect) as a consequence of this norm violation. Evidence that children expect the ‘outgroup prosocial’ character to face social reprisal will demonstrate they have knowledge that outgroup inclusion may be a prosocial risk, under conditions of intergroup division. Evidencing this understanding will pave the way for future studies to examine how individual differences in prosociality and risk taking might interact, to predict children’s own outgroup inclusive behaviors.